The Boston Media House Student Committee

Applications for the 2012 Boston Media House Student Committee opened on the 28^th February 2012!

Application forms are available at the Student Desk...please consult the notice boards for further information.

The goals of the Student Committee are:

• To promote better relationships amongst Boston Media House students.
• To provide a forum for students to present their ideas and contributions.
• To act as ambassadors of Boston Media House both on campus and in community life.
• To act as liaison officers between the Boston Media House Management and students.
• To help promote good citizenship among the students.
• To help promote leadership.
• To help promote a culture of learning amongst fellow students.
• To support the Boston Media House academic programme.
• To support any cultural, sporting and promotional activities that may be organised; and be present at social events, expos, open days and graduations.

At Media House Sandton, only second and third year students are eligible to stand as heads of the committee portfolios; first year students can only be selected to join the subcommittees of each portfolio once the main committee has been elected.

The Student Committee will consist of one or more students representing each of the following positions/ portfolios, as appointed by the Boston Media House Staff Executive Committee: Chairperson, Vice Chairperson and Secretary, Academic, Arts and Culture, Sport,  

Social and Social Responsibility. An explanation of the duties and responsibilities of each position or portfolio is available on the current application forms.

A Student Committee member’s term of office is generally one year, except where a representative is in his/her final year of study.

The Student Committee will be appointed in/before the first week of April of any year and the term of office will be until the end of March of the next year. Final year students who are elected to sit on the Student Committee will have to end their terms of office at the end of their final year of study.
To be on the Student Committee, a student must:

• Be a full-time student taking a Media Studies Diploma at Boston Media House.
• Be a second or third year student.
• Preferably have passed all the previous year’s subjects.
• Not have been found guilty of misconduct during his/her course of study and not have a criminal record.
• Identify him/herself with the aims and ideals of Boston Media House
• Subscribe to the Student Committee constitution.

So, all new first years, this is something to strive towards! But as mentioned to you on your first induction day, we want YOU to come up with ideas of what you’d like to see on campus this year: write them down and post them in the drop box in the foyer outside reception. And once the committee is in place, try to help them in any way you can! Your suggestions and support are hugely valued.

Here’s an example of what the 2011 committee achieved last year:

As the committee does every year, they joined up with the third year PR students to hold a drug awareness campaign, and an AIDS awareness and testing day on campus.

The Committee-driven soccer teams had a couple of good tournaments against other colleges such as College Campus and Damelin—as did the newly-formed netball teams.

The slam poetry club was given the honour of being filmed by promotions and events company owner Laura Setzkorn, with a view to participating in professional events, as the calibre of their work was exceptionally high. Furthermore, the Student Committee Arts and Culture Portfolio head, Thandeka Msimanga, chose two very talented poets to perform at graduation this year, performing a piece written by them—and Bonga Ndziweni and Apiwe Mjambane proved to be the hit of the ‘show’!

The Student Committee held a Freshers at Vacca Matta at Montecasino in March; and also a “Battle of the DJ’s” in July, at Le Cristal, a club in Parkmore; the winning DJ’s were then invited to play at the “Miss Boston” semi-finals, the first leg of a very successful new event held in August. Organised and managed by Student Committee chairperson Vanessa dos Reis, the semi’s at the Sandton Media House campus featured twelve gorgeous finalists wearing corporate and club wear, and answering impromptu questions by DJ Lebza, MC for the event.

Based on votes from that day, seven finalists were chosen to go through to the finals held on the 14^th October...and THAT was the event to crown all events!

Held at the well known club ZAR, the event featured judges Tumi Foster from YFM, Jess Wood, Aldecia 2SAB models and Boston’s own beat boxer, George Avakian. Featured artists were L-Tido and Deep Level, and the evening rocked to the sounds of DJ’s Switch, Vigilante, Warras and Twinz on Decks. The scintillating finalists dazzled the crowd in clothes sponsored by EL Clothing and Khosi Nkosi from YDE; the club was packed with close to 400 people who cheered the winners on...second princess Lerato Lekutle, first princess Precious Masego and Miss Boston 2011, Patience Kekana.

Many thousands of rands were raised from the door takings at this event, and were donated by the Student Committee to the charity “Children of Fire”—which helps young survivors of burn injuries.

Consolidated home for Media24 investigative journalism stories

The Media24 investigative journalism unit has launched a website to provide a consolidated home for stories that the investigative journalism team produces for a variety of its daily and Sunday newspaper titles. The site is also a place for whistle-blowers and others to share with tips and documents.

Unusually among South African investigative reporting teams, the unit is not attached to a single title and therefore the work it produce is distributed across many publications and platforms.

A cornerstone of the site will be for the investigative reporters to share documents and other source material with the public. For example, the site included at launch several hundred pages of documents relating to the National Youth Development Agency's R108 million spending on the infamous "kissing festival", which the team gained several months ago, using access to information law.

"Many other connections"

"We have already produced a number of stories from these documents but there will most likely be many other connections and names which mean little to us but which a reader may spot as significant," said Andrew Trench, Media24 investigations editor.

Andrew Trench

"The Guardian in the UK's use of the 'wisdom of the crowd' in sifting through tens of thousands of pages of MPs expense claims there shows that appropriately sharing source material can be an important tool in investigative reporting today."

Leaked confidential recordings

It also includes audio clips from recently leaked confidential recordings of the National Lotteries Board's discussions around a security breach of the lottery operator Gidani's systems. First-day web analytics shows that these audio clips were the second most popular item on the site and would indicate that readers are interested in spending time delving into other material relating to investigative journalism.

"Our primary goal is meeting the needs of our newspaper titles but the web gives us an important arrow in our quiver, as we work to build South Africa's best investigative reporting team," concluded Trench.

View the site at http://www.m24i.co.za/.

Hints on How to Succeed in College Classes

Budgeting Your Time
A general rule of thumb for college classes is that you should expect to study about 2 to 3 hours per week outside class for each subject. Based on this rule of thumb, a student taking 15 subjects should expect to spend 30 to 45 hours each week studying outside of class. Combined with time in class, this works out to a total of 45 to 60 hours spent on academic work - not much more than the time required of a typical job, and you get to choose your own hours. Of course, if you are working while you attend school, you will need to budget your time carefully.

If you find that you are spending fewer hours than these guidelines suggest, you can probably improve your grade by studying more. If you are spending more hours than these guidelines suggest, you may be studying inefficiently; in that case, you should talk to your instructor about how to study more effectively.

GENERAL STRATEGIES FOR STUDYING

• Don't miss class. Listening to lectures and participating in discussions is much more effective than reading someone else's notes. Active participation will help you retain what your are learning.
• Budget your time effectively. An hour or two each day is more effective, and far less painful, than studying all night before homework is due or before exams.
• If a concept gives you trouble, do additional reading or problem solving beyond what has been assigned. And if you still have trouble, ask for help: you surely can find friends, colleagues, or lecturers who will be glad to help you learn.
• Working together with friends can be valuable in helping you to solve difficult problems. However, be sure that you learn with your friends and do not become dependent on them.
• When studying your text: Don't highlight - underline! Using a pen or pencil to underline material requires greater care than highlighting, and therefore helps to keep you alert as you study.

Preparing for Exams

• Rework problems and other assignments; try additional problems to be sure you understand the concepts. Study your performance on assignments, class tests, or exams from earlier in the semester.
• Study your notes from lectures and discussions. Pay attention to what your lecturer expects you to know for an exam.
• Reread the relevant sections in the textbook, paying special attention to notes you have made in the margins.
• Study individually before joining a study group with friends. Study groups are effective only if every individual comes prepared to contribute.
• Don't stay up too late before an exam. Don't eat a big meal within an hour of the exam (thinking is more difficult when blood is being diverted to the digestive system).
• Try to relax before and during the exam. If you have studied effectively, you are capable of doing well. Staying relaxed will help you think clearly.

Presenting Homework and Writing Assignments
All work that you turn-in should be of collegiate quality: neat and easy to read, well-organized, and demonstrating mastery of the subject matter. Future employers and lecturers will expect this quality of work. Moreover, although submitting homework of collegiate quality requires "extra" effort, it serves two important purposes directly related to learning.

1. The effort you expend in clearly explaining your work solidifies your learning. In particular, research has shown that writing and speaking trigger different areas of your brain. By writing something down - even when you think you already understand it - your learning is reinforced by involving other areas of your brain.
2. By making your work clear and self-contained (that is, making it a document that you can read without referring to the questions in the text), it will be a much more useful study guide when you review for a test or exam.

The following guidelines will help ensure that your assignments meet the standards of collegiate quality.

• Always use proper grammar, proper sentence and paragraph structure, and proper spelling.
• All answers and other writing should be fully self-contained. A good test is to imagine that a friend is reading your work, and asking yourself whether the friend would understand exactly what you are trying to say. It is also helpful to read your work out loud to yourself, making sure that it sounds clear and coherent.
• In problems that require calculation:
• Be sure to show your work clearly. By doing so, both you and your lecturer can follow the process you used to obtain an answer.
• Pay attention to details that will make your assignments look good. For example:
• Use standard-sized white paper with clean edges (e.g., do not tear paper out of notebooks because it will have ragged edges).
• Staple all pages together; don't use paper clips or folded corners because they tend to get caught with other students' papers.
• Use a ruler to make straight lines in sketches or graphs.
• Include illustrations whenever they help to explain your answer.
• Ideally, make your work look professional by using a word processor for text and equations and by creating graphs or illustrations with a spreadsheet or other software.
• If you study with friends, be sure that you turn in your own work stated in your own words - it is important that you avoid any possible appearance of academic dishonesty.

Student competition to design gift card range

TFG (The Foschini Group) will be launching a new gift card range for its 16 retail brands and is giving tertiary design students the opportunity to participate in redesigning the new range for 2012. The competition gives students the opportunity to get a practical experience and the freedom to create something on a blank canvas with guidelines.

"The group takes pride in its gift card range," says Kathryn Sakalis, CRM and communications general manager. "Our aim is to give consumers a card that is a work of art appealing to anyone and is also a collector's item in its own right."

This competition rides on the back of the successful launch in 2009 where the group used the talented local designers from am i collective to design its range.

'Live' together as a set

Design students will be required to create four different types of cards - one male, one female, one congrats and one romance card - that will work individually and 'live' together as a set. They will also be required to design one type of packaging to accompany the cards. Students will be able to work individually or as a group of up to four.

The winner of the competition will receive a R25 000 TFG gift card to be used at any of its retail brands nationwide and potentially have their design showcased in selected stores. A R10 000 cash prize will be donated to the winner's institution towards a bursary for a promising and passionate design student. Second place and third place designs will receive a R10 000 and R5000 Gift Card respectively.

"South African designers are amongst the best in the world and I believe that there is no age limit to a good designer. We are excited to be launching this competition to the local tertiary institutions and are looking forward to seeing the outcome of the designs," concludes Sakalis

The closing date for entries is 30 April 2012 and all entrants must submit their designs via the gift card website http://www.mygiftcard.co.za/.

What is Advertising?

Advertising according Kotler et al in the Principles of Marketing is "Any paid form of non-personal presentations and promotion of ideas, goods or services through mass media such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio by an identified sponsor".

Advertising is used by businesses and non-profit organisations to communicate messages about themselves, their products, services, and causes. Advertising is used to inform, persuade and remind the audience, an example of an advertising campaign is that of Absolut Vodka.

In collaboration with a new generation of artists, Absolut Vodka introduced Absolut Blank, a global creative movement, in which Absolut appears as a catalyst for contemporary leading-edge creativity. Absolut has always challenged conventions through creative collaborations with artists such as Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and more recently Spike Jonze.

"In Absolut Blank, Absolut has boldly made its iconic bottle into a blank canvas to inspire artists throughout the world to collaborate and fill it with creativity. We brought together creative collaborators from a variety of disciplines and watched the journey from pure white canvas to exceptional pieces of art. The result depicts how artists and creativity are inspired through Absolut," says Mark Hamilton, Global Marketing Director at The Absolut Company.

The 20 artists participating in Absolut Blank represent a variety of creative disciplines from across the globe; from drawing, painting and sculpting to film making and digital art.

Absolut Blank was created by Absolut in collaboration with TBWA/Chiat/Day New York. To view more of this campaign go to: http://www.media.absolutcompany.com/

Where can I find an internship?

Students at the end of their second year starts to stress about the search for an internship.
internships4u is an on-line recruitment platform that brings internship seekers and employers together. internships4u provides employers access to vast numbers of candidates each month who are looking for internships. Through an automated selection process, employers can quickly fill their positions with qualified people. Internships offer companies the opportunity to test potential employees and allow interns to gather valuable experiences.

Check them out at:
http://www.internships4u.co.za/

What will I earn one day?

This is a question we get asked often - how much will I get paid? Adtalent, annually releases a survey of what to expect in each of the different media segments.
Check out this link to see what you can expect to earn in your specialisation field:
http://firemailer.firewater.net/adtalent/pages/Newsletter_Display.asp?NewsletterID=73&IntroArticle=True

Welcome!!!

Hi, Welcome to the blog of Boston Media House. On this blog we will share interesting articles, videos and notes for your studies as well as other important information relevant to Boston Media House. If you have any suggestions please feel free to comment and we will look into it.